


Don't Tell Him

by MikaHaeli8



Series: Hidden [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alpha Mary, Alpha Sherlock, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Canon-Typical Violence, Denial, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, F/M, His Last Vow Spoilers, M/M, Mpreg, Omega John, Shooting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1567541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MikaHaeli8/pseuds/MikaHaeli8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Live, Sherlock,</i> John thought, mentally throwing the words at Sherlock. <i>Live, damn you. Live, for both of us.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Tell Him

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Sorry this took so long...I had a lot of trouble with this particular episode as it jumps around a lot & I didn't want to use the same structure as the last one. Just took a few situations and put the same A/B/O thing to it as _Don't Tell Them_. I hope you enjoy. As always, let me know what you think and any mistakes are mine and mine alone. ~Mika
> 
> PS: This can be read as a stand-alone, but it would probably make more sense to read _Don't Tell Them_ first, to be honest ^_^
> 
> PPS: Also sorry if some scenes end a bit abruptly. I was just trying to keep it as concise as possible.

The nightmares returned barely a month into the marriage. Not that John had been actively watching out for them; they had first returned after Sherlock’s jump, and his return had almost eradicated them again. This time, they were particularly vivid. John swore he could smell the blood leaking from his comrades and the smoke from burning bodies. The first time he’d had the nightmares. he’d attributed them to the changes in his life, thinking (hoping) that they would pass shortly. After all, getting married _and_ discovering one was pregnant at the same time was an unprecedented combination. As the nightmares continued, this belief wore away. Now, it was fragile, corroded as if it had had acid poured on it.

The nightmare suddenly changed to a quieter, vastly different setting. He recognised it instantly, barely having the chance to react before it faded, replaced by Sherlock’s face.

‘ _Seen a lot of injuries, then? Violent deaths?_ ’

His rich baritone sounded distant and muddled, as if it had been recorded and had some sort of special effect added to it.

‘ _Enough for a lifetime._ ’

A knocking sound reached John’s ears, seeming like it was coming from far away.

‘ _Wanna see some more?_ ’

‘ _> Oh God, yes._’

The knocking got louder, almost jolting John completely out of the dream. Sherlock’s eyes locked on to his own, staring intensely, a half-smile on his face.

‘ _The game is on._ ’

John blinked rapidly, pulled out of the dream. The knocking had turned into a pounding, and John realised it was his – _their_ – door that was suffering the abuse. Throwing back the covers, he swung out of bed, reached for his dressing gown and made his way to the front door, wondering what was so urgent to require such a brutal assault on the door at this hour.

He opened the door to find a crying, middle-aged woman on his doorstep. His irritation at being woken up early on a Saturday grew at the sight, not helped by his stomach, which was reacting to the woman’s scent.

“I know it’s early. I’m sorry,” she sniffled, voice thick with tears.

John chose to say nothing at that, looking at the woman. She was an Omega and her scent was familiar to him. He knew her, but couldn’t for the life of him remember who she was.

“Is that Kate?” a third voice inquired from behind him.

 _Ah. That’s why her scent’s familiar._ John blinked again, trying to kick his brain into gear. “Y-yeah…that’s Kate.”

His brain was still struggling to reach the right levels of function required when finding a sobbing neighbour on one’s doorstep when he heard a slight huff, again from behind him.

“Invite her in?”

“Oh. Er, yeah,” John stammered, angling his body aside so it wasn’t totally blocking the doorway. “D’you wanna come in, Kate?”

The middle-aged woman nodded, stepping in and walking down the hall towards Mary. John felt a surge of nausea rise to his throat and he ducked into the kitchen, filling the kettle and flicking it on. He heard Mary make sympathetic noises, the muffled noises of the armchairs as the women sat down. As he let the tea brew, he wondered what Kate wanted and why she had come to him. After all, wasn’t it Sherlock she ( _he_ ) was looking for?

John shook the name out of his head. He hadn’t seen him since the wedding and, try as he might, he hadn’t been able to get the stag night out of his head. He wondered how Sherlock could just delete things from his mind as he’d always claimed to do, wishing more than once he could do the same thing. He wondered if Sherlock had deleted the stag night from his memory. It was likely. One drunken shag, a one-night mistake? It probably meant nothing to him in the grand scale of things. Not when there was _the work_.

Clearing the bile in his throat with water, John added the necessary sugar and milk before carrying the mugs into the living room, pushing his thoughts towards Kate. Despite himself, some of those thoughts always strayed back to Sherlock, the resistance breaking when he found him in the dilapidated drug den along with Isaac.

The only thing stopping him from giving Sherlock his third (or fourth, John had lost count) whack on the nose in three months was the need to dash to the toilet before emptying his already-empty stomach of bile. They all stared at him when he came back, but it was Sherlock who stared at him the longest, even through bloodshot eyes.

John shook his head minutely, attempting to ward off the stare. Don’t. Eventually, the younger man relented, turning his attention back to the other man that had accompanied him who was now telling everyone about John’s clean shirts.

 _Revenge for spraining his arm not twenty minutes back,_ John assumed. _Jesus. That’s_ two _of them with the deductions._

~x~

**_CAM Global News headquarters_ **

“You realise you don’t exactly look like Magnussen,” John pointed out.

“In this case, it would be a considerable advantage,” Sherlock countered, looking directly into the camera. He waited, trying to ignore John’s scent next to him. John was now seven weeks along, his uterus having noticeably doubled despite his attempts to conceal it, and Mary still didn’t know about the stag night.

The intercom crackled fleetingly, followed by a disembodied voice. “Sherlock, you complete _loon!_ What are you doing?”

Sherlock smiled widely into the camera, ignoring John’s look of surprise and subsequent exclamation. Gesturing at him to stop moving before he got into the shot, he lowered his voice. “Hi, Janine. Go on, let me in.”

A breathy laugh sounded. “I can’t! You know I can’t. Don’t be silly.”

“Janine…” ( _John…_ ) Sherlock shook his head minutely, dropping his voice. “Don’t make me do it out here. Not in front of everyone.”

“What?” Janine ( _John_ ) replied, her tone a mix of amusement and confusion. “Do what?”

The act came surprisingly easy once Sherlock mentally switched John and Janine. He slowly drew out the little box and clicked it open, holding it up to the camera, making sure it took up almost the entire screen. It wasn’t long before the lights on the scanner changed, the lift doors opening. As soon as he was out of shot, Sherlock dropped the act, making his way towards the lift.

“Wait.”

He stopped, knowing exactly what was about to come out of John’s mouth.

“That was Janine.”

“Well, of _course_ it was,” Sherlock replied, giving John one of his famous ‘you’re an idiot’ looks, albeit on the milder end of the scale. “She’s Magnussen’s P.A. That’s the whole point.”

 _Whole point of_ what?, John wanted to ask, but at the same time, he didn’t want to know. “Did…did you get engaged to break into an office?”

“Yeah.” Sherlock stepped into the lift, wondering what the point of John’s reactions were. “Stroke of luck, meeting her at your wedding. You can take some of the credit.”

John got in and the lift began its ascent. “Sherlock, she _loves_ you.”

Sherlock forced himself to look straight ahead. “Yes. Like I said – human error.” _I would know._

John suppressed the urge to lecture him about how cold he was being. “What are you gonna do?”

“Well, not _marry_ her. There’s only so far you can go.”

“So what will you tell her?”

Sherlock allowed himself a brief look at John. _Goodness, he really does want to know._ “Well, I’ll tell her that our entire relationship was a ruse to break into her boss’s office. I imagine she’ll want to stop seeing me at that point.” He looked at John again, fully this time. “You’d know. You’re the expert on women.”

Complete silence greeted the pair as they reached the floor. Sherlock frowned, the gesture at odds with the glaringly fake smile he had plastered on his face.

“Where’d she go?” John asked, sounding more than a little alarmed.

“Bit rude. I just proposed to her.” Sherlock’s eyes swept the surroundings, but found nothing. He cocked his head slightly, listening for her footsteps.

“Sherlock…”

 _Ah. There she is._ He joined John at the woman’s side, frowning. “Did she faint? Do they _really_ do that?”

John lightly touched her head. “It’s a blow to the head. She’s still breathing. Janine?”

Janine uttered a little groan, confirming that she wasn’t completely out of it. Sherlock looked around the rest of the office, spotting a foot out of the corner of his eye. Several long strides and he had reached another body – again, alive and bleeding from a blow to the head.

“Security.” He peered at a small tattoo behind the man’s ear. “Ex-con.”

“Does he need help?”

Sherlock spotted another tattoo. “White supremacist, by the looks of things. Who cares? Stick with Janine.”

John nodded once before focusing his attention back on Janine. “Janine, I need you to focus on my voice. Can you hear me?”

~x~

Sherlock crept along the carpeted hall in Magnussen’s penthouse flat, senses extremely acute. He heard a voice speaking quietly ( _Danish – Capital accent – Magnussen_ ). It took Sherlock a millisecond to realise Magnussen was talking to someone and he moved closer in the direction of a partly-opened door to listen in.

“What…what would your husband think, eh? He…Your lovely husband. Upright…honourable…so English.”

A pleading tone. Magnussen was _begging_. Holding his body stiffly, Sherlock peered through the gap in the door. Magnussen was on his knees with his hands behind his head, body locked in terror and panic. In front of him, almost completely blocking Sherlock’s view, was another figure, clad all in black.

“What-what would he say to you?”

The figure cocked the pistol in their hand, the sound hanging like the death sentence it promised, before pointing it at Magnussen again. He flinched, whimpering in Danish. Sherlock slowly pushed the door open, moving a little more into the room.

“You’re… doing this to protect him from the truth, but…but is this protection he would want?”

Bringing himself fully into the room, Sherlock straightened his back and addressed the figure in front of him. “Additionally, if you’re going to commit murder, you might want to change your perfume, Lady Smallwood.”

Magnussen’s gaze flickered to Sherlock. He breathed out in what Sherlock took to be relief and spoke, voice notably stronger than it was a few moments ago. “That’s…not Lady Smallwood, Mr. Holmes.”

 _Then who –_ That line of questioning was abruptly halted when the figure turned to face him. _Mary?_

What had John said? _Mary wears it._ Sherlock inhaled sharply, his mind flashing through the times when they had been together like a flickbook animation. Every deduction he had made about her danced in front of his eyes – _Linguist – size 12 – cat lover – liar – disillusioned Lib Dem – bakes own bread – **liar** – clever – appendix scar – **LIAR** – only child –_

He was dimly aware of her aiming her gun at him, but that one deduction stayed, growing bigger and bigger until he could no longer ignore it –

_– **LIAR** –_

“Is John with you?” she asked, tone cold and level; a woman very much in control.

“H-he’s, um…” Sherlock inhaled again, noticing how shaky his voice sounded.

“Is John _here?_ ” Mary asked again, a little more forcefully.

Sherlock mentally counted to ten in every language he knew, clearing his head and stabilising his voice. “He’s-he’s downstairs.”

“So, what do you do now?” Magnussen asked softly, addressing Mary again. “Kill us both?”

Mary breathed a single huff of laughter, directing a humourless smile at the Dane before turning her attention back to Sherlock.

“Mary, whatever he’s got on you, let me help.”

 _She knows,_ a small voice in the back of his head whispered. _She knows, Sherlock. Don’t._ He prepared to move in her direction, shifting his weight onto one foot, defying the voice (which sounded a lot like Mycroft, again).

Noticing the movement, Mary shook her head, a small, dead smile on her face. “Oh, Sherlock. You’ve done enough of that to last a _life_ time.” She tightened her grip on the handle of the pistol. “If you take one more step, I swear I _will_ kill you.”

Sherlock let a small smile cross his face. “No, Mrs. Watson. You won’t.” He began to take a step towards her, absolutely sure that the use of her married name would bring her back to reason; remind her that she wasn’t the only one who held a high view in John’s eyes. It was the only thing he had to go on. He _knew_ she wouldn’t shoot him –

_Bang._

Sherlock stopped as something hit his chest ( _left side – heart_ ), watching the shock of dark red bloom over his shirt, Mary’s sigh of regret reaching his ears. The last thing he heard himself utter was her name.

~x~

Redbeard lay in a mostly empty corridor of Sherlock’s mind palace, panting, eyes bright and alert – absolutely nothing like he was the last time Sherlock saw him fifteen years ago. He was just about to call the dog when another voice beat him to it.

“Redbeard! Here, boy!”

Sherlock stared in shock. On the other end of the corridor was a little girl wearing a white and blue dress, no more than six or seven years old. She had a mop of sandy blonde hair that just brushed her shoulders and she chortled when the Irish Setter skidded to a halt in front of her, licking her face with enthusiasm.

Sherlock’s throat was dry, and he was unable to utter any more than “Who…”

The little girl looked up at him with piercing blue eyes. She chuckled again, the sound bursting with innocence and blessed ignorance of the world. “You _must_ know who I am or else I wouldn’t be here.” She tilted her head to one side, stroking Redbeard whilst gazing at Sherlock. “I thought you were the _king_ of observers. After all, you tell everyone else to observe rather than look.” She shook her head. “I’m very disappointed.”

The realisation hit Sherlock harder than the bullet. “But you…No. You’re…”

“Got it yet?” The words sounded strange, the syntax too grown up for someone her age. “Come on. If you let go now, if you stop fighting, you’ll never ever see me. You have to keep climbing. You _must._ ”

~x~

**_Meanwhile…_ **

There’s something wrong. Sherlock’s been up there far too long, John thought before he heard the distinct sound of a gunshot. A curse tore from his throat and he got to his feet, running upstairs to Magnussen’s room.

“Sherlock?”

He immediately found Sherlock’s unmoving form and ran straight there, dropping to his knees.

“Sherlock?” He put his ear to Sherlock’s mouth, not quite panicking yet. The man was still breathing ( _thank God_ ), but barely. He patted Sherlock’s cheeks, twice on each one. “Sherlock? Can you hear me?” When there was no response, he looked back to where Magnussen was also on the floor, albeit distinctly alive and breathing. “What happened?”

“He got shot,” the Dane replied expressionlessly.

“Jesus,” John exhaled, opening Sherlock’s jacket. He was immediately greeted with the sight of a bullet wound in his chest, blood staining the crisp, white shirt around it. “Sherlock! Oh my…” He scrambled for his phone, hammering 999 and the green button. He whipped his head back to Magnussen, heart in his throat. “Who shot him?”

Magnussen sat up and put his glasses on, but didn’t say a word to John. Just then, the operator began speaking. John stumbled through the words, grasping for Sherlock’s wrist, feeling for his pulse. It was there; faint, but there.

 _Live, Sherlock,_ John thought, mentally throwing the words at Sherlock. _Live, damn you. Live, for both of us._

~x~

In his mind palace, Sherlock heard the heart monitor, patterns of little irregular beeps breaking the monotonous sound that indicated his death. He climbed up the peeling staircase further, pulling himself up by the bannister.

‘ _You have to keep climbing._ ’

It would have been so easy to give in; to just let the pain carry him away until he couldn’t feel it any more. The problem was that it would have been _too_ easy, and he wasn’t quite ready to give up just yet.

A familiar voice whispered something, the echo filling the stairway.

‘ _Live. For both of us._ ’

“John,” he choked, the words clawing up his throat. “I’m trying.” Everything hurt, but he had to keep going. The beeps on the heart monitor were increasing, the patterns becoming more regular.

After what seemed like a lifetime, he reached the top of the staircase, the light blinding him. He blinked once and it cleared, replaced with a view of several faces and hospital colours.

_Life._

_I’m_ alive.

~x~

**_Some time later_ **

Sherlock pressed the button on the morphine dispenser, the agony in his chest finally passing the limits of his tolerance. The substance spread through his body, warming it and soothing the pain, much like a mother to her child after a nightmare. As he pressed the button, Mary entered the room. Even through the morphine haze, he could feel her resentment and anger. He gingerly rolled onto his back, focusing his eyes on hers.

“No husband with you, Mrs. Watson?”

She said nothing, closing the door behind her with an air of finality. Sherlock could tell that the use of her married name had affected her once more.

“You didn’t expect me to live, did you.”

“I did say I would kill you if you took one more step,” she replied, voice icy and clipped. “Did you honestly think I was lying?”

“You’ve lied about everything else. Why not that?” Sherlock was too tired to be truly angry with her.

Mary sat down, tension radiating from her. “We both know why I’m here.”

“A bit early to make a second attempt, aren’t we?”

Mary twisted her mouth, shaking her head. “Sherlock, I’m going to get straight to the point. I’m infertile. I can’t sire children.”

Sherlock let the words hang in the air before responding. “I know.”

The blonde swallowed, tremors in her voice. “John doesn’t. He still thinks the baby’s mine.”

Sherlock didn’t know what to say. Out of all the possible ways he could have anticipated this confrontation, this was not one of them. “You haven’t told John yet.”

“I can’t, Sherlock.” The cracks in her voice were more apparent, letting more emotion through. “I would lose him if I did and believe me, there is nothing I wouldn’t do to prevent that happening.” She cleared her throat and sat up straight. “If you’d died when the bullet hit your heart, I wouldn’t have this problem. You surviving the shot has complicated matters even more.”

Sherlock resisted the urge to tell her that matters were already complicated by the mountain of lies that formed the basis of her marriage. _Mary, he_ loves _you,_ he wanted to say, but the words stuck to his tongue and refused to leave his mouth.

Mary got up and walked round to the side of his bed slowly, like a predator circling its prey. “Don’t tell him,” she murmured in a threatening tone. “Don’t tell him _anything_. Do you understand?”

Sherlock nodded once.

Seemingly satisfied, Mary turned on her heel and left without a goodbye. Sherlock watched her go and listened to her footsteps fading, the ticking of the clock now the only sound in the room. The anger would definitely come once he got out of this hospital. All he needed was time and resources. He was absolutely certain that it would be very easy.

It would come. It would all come. No matter how long it took.

**THE END**


End file.
